Capillary Technologies raises $14M from Sequoia & Norwest

Cloud-based CRM startup Capillary Technologies has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by existing investors Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.

The company will be using this investment to improve its cloud-based integrated marketing platform and grow its partnership ecosystem which includes Blue Label Engage in South Africa and the American Express’s Global Merchants Services group in the United States.

It’s worth noting that American Express’s investment arm had invested $4.5 million into Capillary in February this year. The company had also raised $17 million in Series A funding in 2012.

Capillary Technologies co-founder and CEO Aneesh Reddy told LiveMint that they will be using the investment to build products for the Asia region to help retail ventures transition from offline sales to online sales. He also noted that South East Asia and India contribute over 50% of the company’s revenues.

The company has also signed a new partner called Agilysys which develops and markets proprietary enterprise software, services and solutions to the hospitality industry. It operates throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Capillary Technologies mentions that this partnership will enable them to offer solutions to companies in the hospitality industry.

Founded in 2008 by Anish Reddy, Krishna Mehra and Ajay Modani, Capillary currently offers solutions such as InTouch (customer engagement), Customer Intelligence (analytics), Campaign Manager (personalized offers), Social Connect (social rewards), Clienteling (tablet app), Lifecycle Marketing (predictive intelligence) and has 16 offices around the world, out of which three are in India.

The company recently launched its Intelligent Customer Engagement (ICE) software suite that is apparently designed to help retail marketers engage with customers on social networking sites.

Some of its customers include the British retailer Marks and Spencer, French clothing brand Lacoste, the KFC chain of restaurants, South Africa’s clothing manufacturer Keedo and a Southeast Asia electrical, IT and furniture retailer Courts.

Trouble brewing in paradise?

This news comes at a time, when one of the co-founders Krishna Mehra is rumored to be exiting the company, as per a source-based The Times of India report. One of the sources told TOI that Mehra had too many differences with Reddy.

Mehra who shifted to the US about an year ago to manage the company’s business in that region, however told TOI that he is only moving out of his sales role to focus on the development of new products. Sequoia Capital principal Shailesh Lakhani also told the publication that Mehra would now be focusing on the company’s innovative technologies team which is based out of Silicon Valley. He has also apparently helped recruit people who will be taking his place in the company.